FBI Knew Who Russians Were Targeting, But Didn’t Let Them Know for at Least a Year

U.S. officials whose personal Gmail accounts were targeted by Russian hackers were reportedly left largely in the dark about the issue for at least a year by the FBI.

According to The Associated Press, 312 U.S. military and government officials were targeted in 2015 by Fancy Bear, a cyber espionage group that has been linked to the Russian government. The AP interviewed 80 names on the list, and only found two who were told by the FBI that they were targets.

“It’s utterly confounding,” said Philip Reiner, a former senior director at the National Security Council, who learned from the AP that he was a target. “You’ve got to tell your people. You’ve got to protect your people.”

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The FBI offered a statement that said in part, “The FBI routinely notifies individuals and organizations of potential threat information.”

The AP, quoting what it called a “senior FBI official,” said the bureau’s failure to notify targets was due to the vast number of attempted hacks.

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“It’s a matter of triaging to the best of our ability the volume of the targets who are out there,” the official said.

Charles Sowell, who formerly worked as a senior administrator in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and was a Fancy Bear target, said that if the AP tracked down names and notified targets, the FBI could have done so as well.

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“It’s absolutely not OK for them to use an excuse that there’s too much data,” Sowell said. “Would that hold water if there were a serial killer investigation, and people were calling in tips left and right, and they were holding up their hands and saying, ‘It’s too much’? That’s ridiculous.”

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who was also targeted, said America needs to up its cybersecurity game.

“Our government needs to be taking greater responsibility to defend its citizens in both the physical and cyber worlds, now, before a cyberattack produces an even more catastrophic outcome than we have already experienced,” he said.

Some targets on the list had their emails published by the site DCLeaks in 2016.

Retired Maj. James Phillips learned that his private information was compromised when the media called for a reaction.

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“The fact that a reporter told me about DCLeaks kind of makes me sad,” he said. “I wish it had been a government source.”

Some of those targeted said the FBI cannot be expected to contact everyone for every possible threat.

“Perhaps optimistically, I have to conclude that a risk analysis was done and I was not considered a high enough risk to justify making contact,” said retired Gen. Norton Schwartz, a former Air Force chief of staff.

“The expectation that the government is going to protect everyone and go back to everyone is false,” said Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior technical officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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Others noted that common sense remains the best defense.

“I don’t open anything I don’t recognize,” said Joseph Barnard, formerly of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command.